[Femina geekoides]

Beware of the duck

While watching the Stephen Fry comedy quiz "QI" last night, a rather striking question came up:

"Which has been responsible for the most human deaths--the nuclear bomb, or ducks?"

Of course, phrased like that, it was fairly obvious what answer they were looking for, and it was not going to be the obvious one. But I was still rather surprised; ducks, it seems were the primary vectors of the Spanish 'flu pandemic in 1918-1919, which is thought to have killed around 30 million people worldwide.

So, the moral of this story is that you should stay away from ducks. If they're not mugging you, they're giving you 'flu.